emusic

eMusic's makeover

Internet music retailer eMusic is undertaking an ambitious site redesign that infuses music discovery and social networking features. Beginning July 22, eMusic is rolling out new album pages for their collection of more than 3.5 million songs--an update that includes both cosmetic and practical design upgrades.

Visually, the new eMusic album page design has a much cleaner and bolder feel than the somewhat dated look the site had been holding on to. The new album page layout is wider, and puts more emphasis on album artwork and user ratings. In a move that should delight those of you who … Read more

eMusic going Web 2.0

It's sometimes lost in all the flavor-of-the-week mix-remix-download-social networking sites, but eMusic has been selling DRM-free MP3s--meaning they can be played on the iPod or any other player--from independent labels and artists for a decade now, and has a reasonable claim to be the No. 2 music store behind iTunes.

A planned redesign is meant to help eMusic retain this position. According to reports in Fortune and Digital Music News, the site's slated for an overhaul beginning next week. Artist pages will be updated with Wikipedia biographies, original editorial content, and embedded YouTube videos. In a nod to … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 722: Print your own drugs

In today's show, we learn that the future lets us print our own drugs, and robots will drive our sailboats for us. Sailboats? Sailboats. Also, Gmail has a new spam problem, the BlackBerry Bold could be the new iPhone of Summer 2008, and the Rolling Stones have rolled their way right off of eMusic. Bummer. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 722

Note: We are making a change to our podcast feed system on Friday, May 16. However, you do not need to subscribe to a new feed. One important thing to know: If you have your podcast … Read more

MP3 Insider 94: Top 5 online music services

Jasmine invites Peter Gavin from Download.com music to discuss their favorite online music stores. Plus, two listeners call in about iPod trading and MP3 players that use swappable batteries. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 94

Topic: Our top 5 online music stores (in no particular order)Amazon MP3: http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b/ref=sa_menu_dmusic2?ie=UTF8&node=163856011&pf_rd_p=328655101&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=507846&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=042ED91AXJKXBZP8TDB3 eMusic: http://www.emusic.com/ Music.download: http://music.download.com/ Daytrotter: http://www.daytrotter.com/ Rhapsody: http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html… Read more

Webware 100 winner: eMusic

eMusic has been around since 1998 and serves up indie tracks to paying subscribers who can purchase songs for about a third of the price found on major digital music providers. While you won't find tracks from the Billboard Top 100 on eMusic, there are a ton of great songs to fill up your MP3 player (legally) and give a generous portion of what you're paying to the artists who are making the music.

In addition to the popularity charts that help people see what's hot on the service, eMusic also maintains a section of playlists and … Read more

E-tailer eMusic tops 200 million downloads

Online retailer eMusic, the self-described second-largest music service after iTunes, announced Monday that it has sold more than 200 million downloads since November 2003 when it moved to a subscription business model.

The New York-based eMusic said in a statement that it is selling more than 7 million tracks a month. Interestingly, the company--the largest retailer of independent music--included in its announcement that it has sold 40 million downloads since Amazon began selling unprotected MP3s last September.

Apparently, eMusic, which has long sold open MP3s, wants to show that Amazon's offering hasn't cut into its business.

Lately, there'… Read more

SpiralFrog's deal with Warner Music is half-baked

Updated 6:20 AM PDT to reflect the official announcement from SpiralFrog.

On its face, the signing of a deal with Warner/Chappell Music, the publishing arm of music label Warner Music Group, would appear to be a breakthrough for SpiralFrog.

Warner Music is one of the top four record companies. And SpiralFrog, which last week claimed the position of third-largest music download site on the Web, has toiled for five years to convince the major labels about the soundness of its ad-supported business model. But so far, SpiralFrog has signed a deal for full rights to offer music with … Read more

Interview: Ghostly International

I recently had the opportunity to conduct this interview with Jeff Owens, Label Manager for the Ghostly International record label. To give you some context, Ghostly International is an independent electronic music label based out of Ann Arbor, MI. They've been releasing music since 1999, and their latest release, Matthew Dear's Asa Breed has been drawing praise from tastemakers such as Pitchfork and Filter.

From my perspective, Ghostly is a unique example of an independent record label that is quickly adapting to today's bizarre and demanding music marketplace. Their music can be found everywhere from iTunes, to Borders, to MySpace. Ghostly also interests me because they are a rare combination of a cutting-edge music label that is still heavily invested in releasing their music on vinyl. In fact, their Spectral Sound sublabel has the distinction of selling the majority of their music in either vinyl or MP3 formats, with just a handful of releases on CD.

It's amazing to me that in the past thirty years we've seen the dramatic rise and fall of music formats like cassette tape… Read more

Episode 572: AT&T, your world, censored

eMusic helper app is small step forward

Online music retailer eMusic launched their 'eMusic Remote' application today, which is currently downloadable for PC, Mac, and Linux. While Remote doesn't exactly revolutionize the eMusic customer experience, it does consolidate the eMusic online store and and eMusic download manager application into one space and increases support for syncing eMusic content to jukebox applications like iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp.

We still wish there was a way to preview tracks without getting kicked over to another application, but this is definitely a step in the right direction for eMusic. It's a much better strategy than trying to … Read more